


Tidal Foreshore

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, I had to stop re-reading Guards! Guards! Because it made me too crazyyyy, It would just be like “the Patrician nodded gloomily”, and i was like SCREAMS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29229201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: In the dark, by the riverbank, near the edge of the Shades, people watched the lights reflected on the purple oily sheen on the surface of the mud of the Ankh.
Relationships: Havelock Vetinari & Samuel Vimes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Tidal Foreshore

They had been laughing at him, inwardly, civilly, in that way that felt so much more like falling through the surface of the ice into the freezing water than open mockery.

And Wonse had thought him petulant, childish…tyrannical…

In the dark, by the riverbank, near the edge of the Shades, people watched the lights reflected on the purple oily sheen on the surface of the mud of the Ankh. Catching sight of him, a number of them moved away quickly and discretely as fish seeing a shadow pass overhead.

They were afraid, not of the Patrician, but of the silhouette of a tall man in dark wool with good boots. He was sure the boots were a factor. Matte black leather that looked more expensive for the scuffs and mud they had encountered. People saw his boots and saw someone who could afford to get away with almost anything. They saw his boots and saw someone who could afford to run through the puddles and over cracked paving without worrying about being soaked or hurt—never mind the stabbing, electric cries of nerves that made that unlikely. It did not feel nice, being looked at with that kind of fear. It wasn’t intimidation or individual menace, that might even be gratifying, it was result of a history of hurt.

So gradually he faded into the background, slipped into the shadows in the broken outline of broken bricks. 

The rain glistened in his hair and under his cloak his robes clung to skin and he knew he was beautiful. It was an odd thought to have in this moment, despairing of his ability to plan, persuade, or even comprehend and communicate on a basic syntactic level. Dragons with mattresses? What had he been thinking, and why did everyone else seem to not only be on the same page, but several chapters into a volume he hadn’t known was published. And why had he bitterly repeated their pattern when Captain Vimes had been talking sense?

He knew the answer to that. Wonse had been watching. Wonse had been trying lead him in a certain direction and he felt that he should give a show of following. Vimes had seen through it, he knew. But what was there to see? Confusion and distress.

The rain and cold and tiny rectangular cobbles felt in perfect concert with the shining sluggish river, a perfect choir to his self-indulgent melancholy. 

In the darkness he heard snatches of conversation. Two young woman gravely discussing a character in a novel’s will to live. A man alone rehearsing an answer to a question for a job interview with so much precision it was slightly frightening. A mother telling a child they had to save the bread for the next day.

They all stood in different harmonics of wind and rain and evening and they all had to be kept safe. A shepherd needed a sheepdog, not a dragon-slayer, that much was clear at least.


End file.
